Antidote
by plaidshirtjimkirk
Summary: He's a rasetsu. That means he's no longer human. …Right? [Established Kondo/Hijikata angst with background Heichi]
1. Chapter 1

This was written for the "Remember me" prompt, sent by the lovely csilla-nocturine on tumblr. It sorta got away from me and evolved into this. Thanks for reading!

* * *

 **.*Antidote*.**

The brush left sweeping trails of onyx in its wake as Hijikata's hand danced over the succession of countless pages. Beautiful penmanship wasn't a requirement for a poet, but it _was_ becoming…even if his current work bore no vestige of artistic flow.

…Even if he hadn't composed a single verse in weeks.

Or had it been months?

Petitions were his life now. _Calligraphic_ petitions. Names and places, dates and times, dry facts and hard truths—each penned in style, with grace and polish and beauty. And the reports, too, comprised of elegant characters embroidered across golden paper…

All of this attention to detail, only to be sent to officials with no appreciation for such aesthetic—or guarantee that these documents would even be _looked_ at, let alone perused.

There was purpose in the obsession with embellishment and the extra work it made, however, and that purpose, it was…

The kanji blurred when Hijikata's focus shifted suddenly on that thought. The brush slowed and then lifted so not to blot, and he remained still, staring down at the apparatus he held between his deft fingers.

He blinked and his mouth parted. A dry huff forced out from between his lips.

Purpose? _What_ purpose? There used to be, when his words flowered across pages bound in leather—when he wrote of morning snow in the winter and birdsong in the spring, when there was someone around who cared to treasure what he produced regardless if it was good or not.

But now, it was only names and places, dates and times, dry facts and hard truths…petitions and reports, inscribed and shipped off to disappear in a Bakufu void.

The futility of it all hadn't even entered Hijikata's mind until this point, until a conversation from earlier fractured the delicate floor of glass he'd trodden upon. And now the only thing he could hear was the inescapable echo of Sannan's nonchalant voice, thrumming over and over in his memory.

" _Toudo-kun also clings to his humanity, with the insistence to live by daylight._ " The statement wafted calm and collected from the open shoji, as if it were a comment about trivialities of the weather instead of the tragedy of one man's life—or _all_ of their lives, for that matter. " _I can understand where the desire comes from, but how futile it truly is…for we are no longer human._ "

It'd been too long by now, doing this particular dance, and Hijikata recognized the point Sannan intended despite its vague deliverance.

" _It's not our business how he copes_." He hadn't turned from his desk when he answered, and kept his tone curt and dismissive: a return in kind to the shot covertly fired in his direction.

A wedge had driven its way deep between himself and Sannan with Kondo's absence, each harboring a different vision of the Shinsengumi's future, and the tension that smoldered behind forced pleasantries only further strained the relationship.

Still, Sannan's rank of Soucho—of General Secretary—hadn't been given without due merit. And when no reply had been offered after the passing of several moments, Hijikata lifted his chin and slowly peered toward the doorway.

What he'd found there was a peculiar directness in Sannan's gaze, a glint in the slight narrow of his eyes. " _Perhaps not._ _Nonetheless, you_ are _aware he is doing it entirely for her._ " And though his words were specifically referring to Heisuke's affection for Chizuru, Hijikata once again felt the weight of their more personal implications.

Sannan's shoulders rose with a cant of his head. " _The real pity is found in what he doesn't realize._ "

Fighting to avoid clenching his teeth, Hijikata's digits instead curled inward on his hakama. " _And that is?_ "

 _"That the end will not justify the means. When all is said and done, the effort will only bring her pain. She will suffer just as much, if not more."_ Fingertips pressed to the frame of his glasses when Sannan turned, but before he resumed his stroll down the porch, he added in an almost indifferent tone, _"…All because he cannot accept the reality of what he no longer is._ "

The steps which carried him off had been so light that he could have been a ghost. And in a way it felt as though Sannan's presence had been, for Hijikata stared long after at an empty space, haunted by his parting words.

 _No longer human_.

They still plagued him now, as he gazed at the fine bristles coated in black and how they clashed with the paleness of his flesh. No longer…

His brow furrowed. Hijikata placed the brush down on the tray with a pointed tap and brought his palm before his face. Squinting, he studied the lines, the rough patches of skin, the callouses on his fingertips from years of brandishing a sword.

No longer…human. Was that true? With drinking the ochimizu, had he forfeited entirely what it meant to be of this world? Had the transformation forever removed his capacity to mesh with others unlike him, stolen his right to appreciate what he'd loved so fondly before the change in his blood?

Clear lines morphed into obscure blotches as Hijikata maintained a vacant stare. His heart still beat and his lungs still drew breath. His fingers ached from paper cuts (even if temporarily) and his stomach growled when he ignored it for too long. He felt the misery of loneliness with Kondo recovering elsewhere from his gunshot wound, felt the crushing weight of responsibility to keep the Shinsengumi afloat among all this Edo _noise_.

But at the same time, Hijikata also experienced the urges—the sensation of control slipping from his grasp, the imploring and nagging and suffering cries within him to just give in and answer a brute call, to quench a relentless thirst.

He swallowed the pain of these attacks he could never predict…tried to ignore the fact that each augmented in severity when compared with the last, tried to brush off the knowledge they would just _keep_ growing worse and more erratic.

At last, Hijikata's hand lowered. Both palms braced against his thighs as he slowly stood.

For now, he could still pass.

His socked feet traversed the tatami without a sound.

For now, he could keep on as he had been…

He stepped over the threshold and onto the porch, walked to the edge of the wooden planks and gazed up to a sky of shimmering diamonds. The moon was crescent on this winter night, but its light barely permeated the obstructing thickness of a passing cloud. Hijikata's gaze softened.

For now, he was keeping it all together. But how long would it be until he could no longer will away the drives without intervention? How long until he could no longer recognize himself, until he became as mindless as the men Niimi had chained to the wall so many years ago? How long until this repressed nature exposed itself, until it could no longer be subdued?

The offending cloud drifted on, leaving in its wake the moon's full luminosity—a bright, conspicuous sickle carved into darkness. Similar to the stars, and yet different. Blending in with the nightscape and yet actually an eyesore, depending on the point of view.

Hijikata's lashes fell.

Sannan had been right about one thing, at least; it was inevitable that Chizuru would end up hurt. And if that were true, then how long would it be until Hijikata caused Kondo the same kind of pain?

His eyes opened.

…What was he thinking?

He already had, from the very moment the poison in that tiny vial made contact with his lips.

If he no longer wrote poetry, could he still call himself a poet? If he was no longer human, could he still call himself a man? And if his adoration for Kondo was as deep as he thought it was and he still did this to him, could he really say that he…?

A cold breeze intercepted that thought and carried it off in the same way it caught Hijikata's long hair. It was enough already, all of this. The shiver wracked his exhausted frame but his feet remained cemented where they were, as if time might stop if he simply ceased to move.

But his heart continued to beat.

And his blood still carried with it the curse.

And now, Hijikata was sure that somewhere, Kondo was staring up at this same sky—that his commander's thoughts were undoubtedly, undeservedly filled with nothing else but him.

His vision blurred again, but for a different reason this time.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

There were reverberations from the past that night, loud and precise, within Hijikata's quarters.

" _I had thought I made myself clear. The ochimizu is not a tool for self-preservation, but a means to step beyond the limitations_."

Despite only serving one, two futons had been laid out. …Because there had always been two. And perhaps, it was sentimental to continue that habit, but…

" _But Sannan-san_!" Heisuke's open hands had been thrust toward him in desperation. " _If I can't move around during the day, then how can I_ —"

Hijikata lay on his side, his eyes half-lidded and fixated toward the shoji with a blank stare. He'd draped a heavy blanket over himself, and beneath that, a black haori.

" _The simple answer is that you do not. The simple solution is that you let go._ "

He dipped his chin, brought the haori to his nose, and inhaled.

" _I can't!_ " Heisuke had anguished, his distress growing. " _The whole reason why I took it was—_ "

The fabric still smelled like him, like Kat-chan.

" _Toudo-kun. It is not…a tool…for self…preservation_. _It is not taken to spare someone else's pain_."

Kazama's sword had pointed in Hijikata's direction and in that same moment when his heart had stopped, all he'd been capable of thinking about was Kondo. …Never meeting his eyes again or feeling the warmth of his embrace, never having the chance to say goodbye or establish closure… Hurting him, _abandoning_ him, because Hijikata hadn't been strong enough to see it all through.

" _Then…_ " An exasperated laugh. " _Then, you're saying I should have just let myself die. Because now Chizuru…"_ Heisuke's voice deteriorated. " _Now Chizuru, she…_ "

…Because Hijikata had been on the cusp of defeat by the hands of a demon. An _actual_ demon—something he, after all that time, simply hadn't been able to say he was. And so the cap had fallen to the dirt and the bottle had met his lips.

" _Perhaps_."

Hijikata closed his eyes and buried his face into Kondo's scent.

 _Perhaps, indeed_.


	2. Chapter 2

**.*Chapter 2*.**

It had been that day, after the rain…

After the demons vanished without a trace and the adrenaline wore off…

After the earth embraced Gen-san, and the long journey made each step heavier than the last… After the brisk wind howled and battered and took with it his vibrancy, after he was left the color of plaster while sparkling ribbons of livelihood—of purple and blue and black—trailed him…

After there was too much time to think about the future and the past, about the repercussions and the long-lasting consequences…

That was when Osaka Castle had at last come into view, with its staggering walls jutting toward a sky bereft of starlight, ever since a blanket of gray rolled in. And how fitting it was: the heights of this formidable, poignant construct pointing to nothing and its armored defenses _protecting_ nothing—of importance, anyway. The shogun and Matsudaira had made it clear with their unannounced retreat that whatever, whomever, had been left in the west was considered expendable.

A more stable man might have recognized it as poetic irony in its finest form. A more fortunate man might have penned such a tragedy across the stanzas…if only it weren't actually happening to him now.

Snowflakes drifted wayward and light through a chill that put a quiver to the bones, and Hijikata's lips trembled. But whether that was entirely from the cold or amplified by finding a lone figure cemented at the front gate, like an architectural fixture, was unclear.

Of course, it was Kondo who awaited him, them. No weather was severe enough to deter his loyalty, no winter too harsh, and no future too hopeless, apparently.

His injured arm was cradled by a sling of bandages and his mouth pulled into a taut line. White dusted his hair and shoulders and his breaths fell conspicuous, but still he maintained the resolute vigil until his eyes could meet Hijikata's. They were openly rife with concern and foreboding, like Kondo had pierced straight through to his soul and already knew it all without a single word spilled.

And it occurred to Hijikata then, as he approached on feet which had gone excruciatingly numb hours ago, that Kondo could read him so well by now that perhaps he already did.

There was more to them than the allegiance of rank, more than the product of the Shinsengumi and the consequent fruits of such labor. They were commander and vice commander, yes, but the threads which bound their souls reached distant into the fathoms—stretched outward to the stars and interlaced with the very fabric of destiny. For as Kondo held Hijikata's heart, Hijikata held his in return.

There was a difference, however.

Kondo had carefully guarded his since the beginning. And as for Hijikata…for the first time in his life, he couldn't hold his commander's gaze.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

 _Falling, falling, falling—splash_. His lips parted and the air left his lungs.

Hijikata stared as his breath floated toward the sun-kissed surface in a cascade of bubbles, while his body drifted further and further under. A hand floated up and out, reaching for the fleeting image of the sky; it was a futile attempt at doing nothing useful, while he sunk through this ocean too deep, too vast, too _crimson_ —

Crimson. He squinted. Crimson? Blood?! Hijikata's eyes shot wide. _Blood!_ His mouth clamped tight when the panic sent lightning surging through his veins, and he attempted, with both desperation and no avail, to lunge himself in the opposite direction of the submersing pull which ensnared him.

" _Why do you fight it?_ " a voice echoed, familiar and calm, over idle thrashing. " _You either drink or drown. It is that simple._ "

Mannequins clothed in dandara haori rose up from the depths and past him—faceless, lifeless representations of the men who had succumbed to the ochimizu and now served as cautionary implications of what Hijikata's future held if he refused the call.

But he…he was not like them. He would not _become_ like them…chained to walls, mindless and wailing and bound by the lust for blood. He would never—

" _Drink…_ "

His lungs had begun to burn from starvation, with delirium pulling over his consciousness like a veil. The fever was rising, the appetite mounting, the demands setting his impulses alight to give in and drink, drink, drink, to breathe in life from the wound of another—or suffocate in this crushing void and be consumed.

Hijikata threw his head from side-to-side and just when his body threatened to succumb…

" _Toshi._ "

The cover went sailing up and toward his feet as Hijikata launched himself into a sitting position on the futon. Rasping in desperation, his hands flew to his throat and he held it, if only to confirm nothing constricted his neck or hampered his ability to breathe.

It was moments of this…of his shoulders undulating violently as he heaved and repeated to himself, over and over, that what he'd just experienced was not reality but a nightmare. Yet, those urges he felt in it…they _remained_ and that meant…

Sweat beaded Hijikata's brow as the tremors began to wrack his frame, and he released his neck before his fingers left something much worse than bruises. Convulsions…gasping. He needed…something to hold, something, before—

 _Red_. The world was going red. His hair…changing, his clarity receding, his humanity withdrawing and bowing to the dominance of feral rasetsu blood. And everything, everything was moving so fast, so out of control, he—

His hands dropped aimlessly, grabbed to whatever was in his lap and squeezed—squeezed and squeezed, _clawed_ , until he could no longer hold back the anguished cry that begged to leave his lips. He muffled it with the blanket.

But the blanket smelled like Kondo. And when Hijikata's eyes snapped open at that awareness, he realized it had been the haori which stifled his voice.

' _Kat-chan!_ ' A sob broke free and his digits clamped with so much force that his knuckles went white hot. Like this, his mind abandoned the frenzy of resisting the transformation and hyperfocused, reiterated that one name as if it were a religious incantation.

Panting, panting…His eyes screwed shut again. ' _Kat-chan, Kat-chan, Kat-chan._..'

The passage of time had become meaningless in this state, but there was a slow approach back to rationality. Little by little, the tremors died and the pain lessened. Bit by bit, the room and his hair faded back into shades of normalcy, and the flames that fueled the incessant yearning dampened once more to ash.

Hijikata remained with his face buried in the garment, daring not move until he was certain he was through it—and once he was, he gradually lowered the haori, until it was firmly pressed to his chest instead.

In a cold sweat, he stared at nothing on the tatami past his feet, then allowed his lashes to fall and swallowed hard. The space felt stuffy and stale despite the cold, and he looked hesitantly, helplessly, toward the outer shoji.

Keeping Kondo's haori tightly clutched, Hijikata rose to his knees and then his feet. He stumbled away from the futon and staggered toward the doors that promised fresh air to feed his lungs. Fingertips pressed to the wooden frame and he slid one panel aside…just in time, to hear the pattering of footsteps and the muted choke of a sob…to see a flash of dark pink before it disappeared around the corner.

 _Chizuru_.

So consumed by the intensity of his own perils, Hijikata hadn't put two and two together as for why Chizuru was running about in the middle of the night…until he heard Heisuke softly hissing her name from the next room over. Immediately, he withdrew into the privacy of his own space and quickly closed the door.

Heisuke's shadow ran across it shortly after, and all Hijikata could do was let his eyes fall shut with an exasperated breath. One hand pressed to his forehead and brushed back through his hair, continuing to travel all the way until he cupped his neck.

He hadn't needed a reminder that he wasn't the only one suffering. They _all_ were, with each unfolding personal drama bound by the skeins of one life-changing occurrence: the astringent taste of ochimizu washing over the palate.

Still…there could be even marginal improvement all around if it was possible to just get some rest. However, what little sleep Hijikata (and everyone else, it seemed) could manage in recent times was shallow, and it went without saying that the nightmares and increasing severity of attacks added nothing favorable to an already ominous situation.

Surely, this sentiment was one that Heisuke shared, and perhaps that was what prompted the brief scene Hijikata had witnessed out there.

His head hung. It wasn't his business, but it _had_ served as supporting evidence to something he'd been reluctant to admit. And maybe it was the exhaustion talking, because he was just so, so _tired_ …

But what really awaited him when he closed his eyes? …And on the opposite side of the coin, what awaited him when they didn't? Either route meant pain, so what was the path of lesser resistance?

As Hijikata's lashes parted again, he was met with the sight of Kondo's haori and it gave focus to his wandering mind. Somewhere, his commander was laid up in a lonely foreign bed, recovering just enough so he could come back home—back to…whatever the hell this was.

He licked his lips at the bitter reflection. How could it be that he'd come to use Kondo as the focal point that would drag him back from the brink of madness? He was where Hijikata's thoughts always went when it all got too unbearable, and the guilt this caused him was simply indescribable.

He knew damn well that he'd forfeited the right to such a luxury when he went back on the most important promise he'd ever made—knew that the consumption of what was trapped in that vial would change his entire life. But he hadn't known the extent, or the degree to which everything would skew.

And if he had to do it all over, well…Hijikata scoffed into the darkness at the alternative and deflected.

There was work to be done. There was _always_ work to be done. If he wasn't doing something, he was useless.

So, he draped the haori over his shoulders, lit the candle, and dropped to seiza before his desk. A deep inhale pushed his chest out and he took up the brush—but before he dipped it into ink, he paused for a moment of consideration, of reminder.

The purpose for his existence now was twofold. First, the future of the Shinsengumi rested entirely on his shoulders and he would have this organization in the best shape possible by the time Kondo returned. And second, when that time came…

Hijikata gazed downward and through his lashes. It was up to him to find a way of navigating these attacks without burdening the person he revered most of all. Because if he'd learned anything from years spent with Kondo, it was that the best way to love someone was to protect them.

The image of Heisuke running frantically after Chizuru filled his thoughts.

And sometimes…

His shoulders fell.

…protecting the person one loved…meant letting them go.

An odd desire to reach for his poetry book twanged within Hijikata; perhaps it was all this musing on affection and tragedy. His eyes slid to the drawer which housed it and he stared in that direction for several moments, before straightening his back and placing a blank sheet of paper on the desktop.

It would be a letter. An appeal for a meeting. …A request that would go ignored.

…But at least it would look pretty.

The brush danced and the wick burned, until sunlight stole its purpose; then, it was extinguished—as all useless things were fated to be.

But as for Hijikata…there was work to be done, no matter how much Katsu Kaishu or the Bakufu ignored them.

At least, that's what he kept assuring himself.


End file.
